Cyberpunk Edgerunners explores a crumbling dystopia

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hello friends and welcome to another episode of Lore Watch this is another episode of our from the vault series
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where we go through and take a look at some of our past episodes and see if there's something either relevant or
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that we really enjoy at the time that is time for us maybe to revisit today we'd like to revisit our Cyberpunk 2077
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Edgeunners episode where Matt and I discussed the joy of the show and everything that it's set up for the game
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to come uh I think it's relevant now i think Cyberpunk is still uh pretty
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popular especially with its continued updates that it received and I'm still seeing plenty of people uh talk about it
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and stream about it i'm sure current events have nothing to do with it but please enjoy this episode from about 3
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years ago at this point
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down
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good morning Blizzard Watch City and welcome ches to another chip of lore watch not to be confused with Netwatch
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where we talk about all the deets of our favorite forms of brain dance i'm your Eddie seeking fixer Joe Perez and I've
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got my p Ronin with me today Matt Boga Rossi how you doing today Matt i'm going
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by M now oh I apologize M the mysterious Ronin well if you haven't picked it up
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from that intro we're going to be talking about Cyberpunk again today why also if you haven't picked it up from
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that intro Joe is extremely excitable uh so part there's a couple reasons for
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this one the Edgerunner series was just released on Netflix uh and it goes back
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to uh the Cyberpunk universe which Matt and I have talked about fairly extensively uh if you remember there was
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a point in time where Matt and I traded games i was playing Cyber Punk and you were playing I want to say it was uh one
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of the Assassin's Creed games and then we w up swapping for a long time yes that is that is correct it was Odyssey most likely so needless to say we are
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very excited about the content of Cyberpunk uh so we're it was Valhalla it was Valhalla Valhalla i apologize i just
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needed to get that detail right uh so we're going to be talking a little bit about Edgeunners what it actually has
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released as far as story goes why it's important to the universe that is being created in the Cyberpunk 2077 game and
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also the other reason we're talking about it is because Cyberpunk just released a rather large update not too long ago that actually incorporated a
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lot of this stuff mhm so I will say this this is one of the few times that a
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property has so enthusiastically embraced an outside media thing
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very rarely do you see this level of it so yeah and this seems to be a thing this the other reason that I wanted to
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bring this up as well and have an episode about it is because CD Project Red for all of their faults and there are many uh definitely seems invested in
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the storytelling of their worlds uh and this is not the only thing that they seem to be possibly looking at
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integrating while they haven't made an announcement there are plenty of rumors flying around that things like the Witcher series there's a Witcher anime
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that was released not too long ago that actually was all the precursor stuff for how the the order became the way it was
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uh there is a lot of stuff there and with them confirming that they've started work on the next Witcher game uh
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there is now a precedent set for cross-pollination between properties or between media so they may go ahead and
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make another anime or a live TV series or something that that ties in with the greater Witcher universe that then is
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reflected in the game or vice versa so let's start with our first impressions uh Matt what did you think of Edge
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Runners this show is hella dark man um it actually I I said to my wife as we
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were watching it uh this show got the memo about cyberpunk being a relatively dark and fatalistic genre uh it
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understands that that stuff ain't going to go also V must be practically a god
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after watching the the the end fight between David and Smasher oh yeah yeah
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v's a god cuz V kills Smasher so yeah geez but I I thought it did a really
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good job of setting up the characters i liked almost all of them i even liked Kiwi i even liked Kiwi after the thing that happens um it's it's one of those
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things where like it's ridiculously on brand right like it absolutely it this thing is not even trying to to throw you
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a swerve it is going to tell you the story that you see coming from the first episode like you don't know the
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specifics but you know none of these people are going to have a good time and it's it's unabashed about that and I
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actually is one of the reasons why I really enjoy it and yes there is a warning if you haven't watched it yet it is very gory it has a lot of nudity
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there's a lot of adult content in it it's an it's an an adult-rated anime i'm
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not saying adult like like it's porn it's not but it is for people who are capable of of withstanding the images
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and it also deals with a lot of heavy tones too as far as the story goes as well so like it's absolutely not for
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everybody but regardless I actually thought that it was really well done i thought the characterization was great
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the voice acting was really well done this is it and the scene setups were really really good now the other thing
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that I thought was really nice about it or at least interesting so Matt and I had talked about this before where Night
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City tends to be the main character uh whenever you deal with the tabletop game when you're dealing with uh Cyberpunk
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2077 Cyberpunk deals with Night City as its own character and in this game it
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sort of zooms that out a or game this the show it zooms it out a little bit where there is more focus on the
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individual characters and how they navigate the city i I think that the
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it's interesting because the focus on the individual characters is the method by which the city is portrayed yes uh
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this is still about Night City oh absolutely maybe it's more about the entire world would be another way to put
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it it's about not just Night City but everything everywhere everybody the the
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world as people are experiencing it so and yeah go ahead let's let's start with
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just kind of going with the scope of the story so it opens up with uh basically us getting introduced to the main
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character of of David Martinez he's uh trying to make some extra bucks trying to sell some brain dances for Ripper Doc
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he knows in the area uh he's pre-sampling it and the first thing you are introduced to is a cyber psycho
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incident now cybercsychosis is when somebody has pushed themselves to the limit of upgrading their body with
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mechanical implants uh basically more cyborg than man uh or person and starts
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losing their sense of self their brain starts to shut down because their nervous system can't handle that much
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hardware they're not made to they're taking too much input basically it's like if you tried to hook up a computer
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with a really janky power supply to like all the possible upgrades you could put you could make to it it there's not
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enough power there's not enough anything to run all this the the brain cannot be the CPU and the power system for all
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this stuff it's just too much and it isn't it is an incredibly dark moment well David comes out of the brain dance
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uh goes to bed wakes up in the morning he's getting ready for school uh he's waiting for the washing machine to be
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done with his clothes the washing machine stops because this is where you start getting introduced if you're not familiar with the world of cyberpunk
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everything costs Eddies or Eurodouble dollars everything doesn't matter what it is you run an apartment that has
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appliances you have to pay individually for those appliances those are extras that get added onto your apartment um yeah and in this case his mother had
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because of you know her own struggles to keep everything going because she's been paying for David's schooling she
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accidentally forgot to pay for the the washer dryer and that means he has to go to school in his normal clothes because
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he can't wear his school uniform because it is still soaking wet and as he's heading to school we start to actually
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get a beat of the city where we start to see uh Trauma Team as he's moving through the Metro Mona Rail type system
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that they have in the game or in the in the world uh I'm going to say game a lot folks so my brain I've been playing a
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lot of Cyberpunk 2077 in the last couple weeks um but you start to see how Trauma
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Team interacts with it how people are pushed aside he's walking by not paying attention to a dude getting held up at
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shotgun point um the city or the people that are essentially engaging in uh
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sexual brain dances in public um public intoxication going on at bright early
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hours of the morning where I believe it was a line from the books and was repeated in the game night City only
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looks pretty at night because you can't see the filth on the street um and that's sort of what you get here you get
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to see the stark reality of how desperate everything is and then as he moves forward you find out that he is a
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student at Arosaka Academy now airsaka may sound familiar to you because it is one of the major mega corpse in uh
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cyberpunk that is responsible for the main storyline of the video game but also meddling and everything from uh
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religious affairs to political affairs to uh street level cop affairs uh to the
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fact where Maxtac even the the unit of Night City uh police that deals with
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cyber psychosis will listen to Arisaka when it tells them to leave uh because
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it knows that they can't they they basically own it they own Night City for lack of a better term yeah they're
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basically if they're not the world's largest mega corporation in the area of Night City they're the most powerful
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because they're the ones that engineer Night City's independence from the new new United States of America uh they
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effectively own the mayor's office especially at this point because Mayor Ryan would still be alive um I guess
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mild spoilers for Cyberpoint 2077 but he dies off camera you just you're just informed that it happened um regardless
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Arasaka is in the driver's seat arasaka Academy is intended to be for the
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children of people who work for Arisaka yeah executives but but David's scores
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were so good that he got in but his mother is paying through the basically just bleeding money out to get him
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through Arisaka Academy with the goal of once he's done at Arasaka Academy he would then get a job at Arasaka that's
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what Arasaka Academy is for um David knows that's not likely to happen because his co-work like his co-
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students all hate him because he is not one of them he's the poor kid he's the poor kid in the rich kid school essentially what it boils down to yep so
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there's a lot of scenes of his interactions with them and with the uh the staff of the school to just in to
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just give you a sense of you know from his perspective this is a waste of time it's not going to work uh none of these
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people want him there uh but from his mother's perspective this is she's willing to sacrifice anything for this
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because this is in her opinion this is her way out well his her way out for him yes uh this is his
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escape route that she's going to make work no matter what she has to do now the reason that this is important is
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because this is sort of a common theme with a lot of the characters in Night City so this is how your characters
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generally start in the tabletop game uh this is how two of the three starting
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backgrounds in the uh the actual video game itself work uh where you are
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basically trying to claw your way out from in this case Haywood or the the outskirts to a place of prominence and
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and and sort of fiscal freedom right because that's and the other is basically still the same it's just that
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you're just trying to claw your way back yeah so and and and the idea there is that the fact is having a corporate gig
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and having that access to that type of Eddies gives you freedom and because that is what money gets you in Night
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City it's the only way to have freedom in but at the same time because this is Night City because this is Arisaka or
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any other mega corp it's not real freedom because everything is actually arisakas and the second you do
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receive or yeah or wherever the you're basically if you're a modern North
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American especially in the United States you understand that your health benefits come from the company now imagine everything comes from the your apartment
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your car your your medical care uh your your the cyber wear in your head which
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is basically their version of of a smartphone which everybody has by the way yeah everybody's got at some level
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of it and all of that comes from the company and the second that the company is done with you it all goes away
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uh and that's So you you've got this situation where it's it's basically you're still in the you're still like a
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trapped in the cage but you have that really nice perch essentially or you can have a crappy perch where you have to fight with all the other things in the
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cage so her in order to get her son through the academy uh we find out later
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do you mind if I tell us now i go for it no no absolutely we find out later that Gloria has been basically she works as
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an EMT she's not in trauma team she works for one of the local hospitals so when trauma team is like when when
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they're not involved because either it's a cyber psycho with no coverage or what have you she's been swooping in and
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grabbing implants out of the the bodies of cyber psychos who get killed and selling them to to
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like on the black market to mercenaries and so forth it's the one of the ways she's making money for David schooling
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um and she David is gets in an altercation with other students and he gets like the snot beat out of him cuz
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like the Arasaka kid who's who's picking a fight with him has Arisaka level software well not even just that he has
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Arosaka level uh cyber implants because his father we find out and we're skipping ahead just a little bit before
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I go back but like you find out his father is in in charge of the division that is of Arosaka that's meant to compete with Milletch the military
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cyberware creator yeah so as a result of that altercation although David did not start it and basically gets the hellbeat
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out of him he gets in trouble i found this incredibly relatable by the way because Oh yeah it's it's Yeah it's the
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poor the poor kid having trouble at school with the rich kids and then trying to avoid the fight like let's
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make that clear david tries to walk away from the fight um and then ultimately
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can't because the dude just throws the punch and starts beating the snot out of him well they he basically traps him in
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a corner and you know says something guaranteed to to tick David off enough to take a swing yep
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yeah then beats the crap out of him yeah so David then gets in trouble his mother has to come into the school they're like
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you know you're going to have to pay for this and that and you know on their way out he's like why are you you know why will you keep doing this and she's she
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goes into like how this is her you know she knows he can do this she knows how how smart he is she knows that he can
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have a good future a good job at Arasaka if they just get through this and you know and she tells him this is my dream
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please just you know just try and that's when that drive by shooting happens well
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it's not even just a drive by shooting so what winds up happening is they're driving home uh after everything's
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happened after the altercation after after everything happens and essentially David is is going to wind up he's
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getting in trouble for it and his mother has to come pick him up so on the way home they're driving through and two
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gangs start fighting on the freeway and this is a perfect encapsulation of Night City because the gangs just kind of do
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stuff and the people that aren't in gangs get caught in the crossfire all the time that's literally what happens
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as either side of their car one of the gang vehicles rolls up and then they start firing at each other through their
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cars now that doesn't kill uh anybody and they're able to uh they basically
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the the gangs move forward but with everything that happens and essentially the No I'm sorry it was a gang going
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against a corpo limousine um they fire a rocket that flips the corpo limousine
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over and Gloria can't react fast enough because she's frozen because of what she
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just had to you know happen uh can't slam on the brakes winds up slamming into the vehicle and then there's a
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explosive fiery wreck and in a moment of another perfect point or perfect
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encapsulation of uh Night City Trauma Team shows up trauma Team scans Gloria
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and David and then lets them to die because they are not policy holders yep
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right so they do not get the the extraction they do not get any help they have to wait for normal city responders
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which can take forever depending on how the gang wars are or where they're at because most of the the regular night
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city folks don't have air vehicles right uh so fast forward a little bit David
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takes gets his mom taken to uh essentially the equivalent of a ripper dock um it's they she goes through
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surgery says she's you know going to be stable she's going to make it whatever but you're going to have to pay us
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within 3 days here's your bill and then after that well her coverage your your coverage didn't cover anything besides
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what we did uh so she died and that's that's it sorry we couldn't do anything
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more cuz your coverage didn't have anything that is the baseline for Night City if you cannot pay for it upfront
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you don't get it that's it there is no post billing there is no like none of
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that stuff that they don't put people into debt and crush you they just simply take the money or you don't get help it's that it's that simple and it's that
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way not just with medicine it's that way with everything like at this point David is having to break back into his
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original apartment because they have not paid the rent yet because she died and
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there's just they've locked the doors and that's it so he's literally breaking in every night to find to have somewhere
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to sleep so what winds up happening as he's going through his mother's stuff because his mother's belongings are given back to him is he finds that
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there's a sand which is a spinal replacement that links up with your nervous system to You have to comment
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here before you get going okay go ahead s technically that's not what a Sand Devston is so I am really interested in
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the Sand Devston because that's a Charznikov if you look at the implant mark of the Carznikov on your character
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sheet if you have one which I do that's what that is that spinal thing that's a carznikov yes but also the software that
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you would use in your deck so they've built a Sand Devaston with it into a
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Carznikov and it's in the game now too there's a new legendary There's a new legendary what they call a Sand Devastan
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that looks exactly like that in the game yeah and it's fascinating to me well there's a reason for that later on when
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we get into We get into it we absolutely get into it but I just really liked that bit it was a nice touch it looks like it
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was a mistake but then you're like "Wait a minute that's that's a Charisma what what's going on?" And then it comes into
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the whole thing later and they call it a carnov at 1.2 that it's a competitor for it right so he decides screw it i'm
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going to go get this installed i'm gonna I'm gonna go to the doc who screwed me in the first place because his Halo his
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essentially the thing that allowed him to log into school stuff needed a license upgrade that he couldn't afford
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uh so he went to a ripper dock to essentially get uh hacked software that w up crashing everything uh but then
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he's like "Fine doc you owe me you owe me absolutely for screwing up my life my
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mother wouldn't be dead if you didn't do this like this is your fault you're going to put this in and that completely
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doesn't work because the RiverDoc does not care at all but then he decides to put it in just because he wants to watch
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the kid die using it now and I've heard some people try to try to say that he didn't want David to die no he
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absolutely did and the reason is he gets it installed and the deal they make is that when you die I get the I get the
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piece of hardware for free he doesn't give him any immunol blockers mhm which is thinking it would kill him almost
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immediately yes which it should but it doesn't because David is apparently got ridiculously high cyberware uh you which
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this comes in again but his his tolerance is it's a key part of the story well which is an interesting thing
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because it's a thing inside of Cyberpunk as well where some people just have a higher tolerance for it um enter things
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like Adam Smasher who uh is a legendary figure and has been a legendary figure in the role playing game and the video
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game up until the things with V which we can talk about that otherwise cuz I have theories on that anyway
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sure as heck lost this to Morgan Blackhand in 2022 did he didn't he yes he absolutely did um and Blackhand
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doesn't have any real implants nope but but the idea is that he has the highest
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threshold known to mankind where they're not sure how much of his human meat suit is still left he might just be a brain
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inside of a robotic body at this point they're not sure i'm pretty sure that is where he is by the end of the game i
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mean by the time you're playing Cyberpunk that's that seems very like Yeah so nobody else has has shown that
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sort of resistance but David did and David actually is able to activate uh and we're just going to call it the
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Sandy uh because that's what they refer to he's able to activate the Sandy 10 times in a row before he manages to have
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any problems and that's with no amunosuppressants none there is nothing given to him this
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is not a Vic a Vic type cyberdoc this is a dude who gave him nothing and he just used it 12 times he was fine yeah and
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and so he goes on he's trying to figure out what to do and he winds up running into now he had noticed this girl before
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who Lucy who is a netrunner who uh at this point is scamming chips uh off of
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folks on the train uh so she's doing this on the train that he's on uh the chip pops out of uh some dude's neck and
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she goes to grab it david activates the Sandy grabs her wrist that's that chip popped out of his head that was his Oh
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sorry it was David's chip yes you're correct yeah so that's why he he kicked it up and grabbed him and was like "Nope
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I don't think so." But then it starts the the first time of him getting into edge because now to test him after they
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make a deal uh with a 7030 split they start working together to pop chips grab
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chips and then sell the chips and this is where the immuno blocker imunosuppressant starts to come up uh
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because he starts bleeding from the nose passes out lucy takes him to the ripper
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dock chews out the ripper dock for not giving him any immunol blockers and then sells all the chips to the ripper dock
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to pay for the imunol blockers that David needed to to basically keep going mhm then she takes him back to at one
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point her apartment where we find out now that the person who was originally supposed to get the Sandy from Gloria
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Lucy's part of that crew um and while she keeps him busy telling him her dream of going to the moon sharing the brain
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dance with him Maine and the rest of the crew show up and knock David out and
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drag him up and hang him up from upside down from his legs uh where David then starts basically saying you know I
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didn't know it was yours didn't know it was supposed to be founded in my mom's stuff you know then they figure out that his mom was Gloria and Maine puts him
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down because Maine had a good relationship with Gloria she was his main supplier for Chrome and while this
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was supposed to be for him David makes a deal to start working it off as a member of the crew and starts becoming the
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rookie in the edge running crew and I'm going to shut up and let Matt talk for a little while well the the training I want to call it a train montage but it's
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an entire episode of of David learning the ropes and it's it's really good
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actually it's you get to know the characterization of all these people um like I said Rebecca is an absolute
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standout i liked Kiwi i like Falco um I like Doria actually i I I like Doria and
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Maine's relationship um there's one guy I don't like and I can never remember his name but he's Rebecca's brother oh
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yeah i can't remember his name but the dude with the long hands yeah the dude with He is He I do not like this guy and
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I am not upset when something happens to him but you you get to see David interacting with these people uh
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learning he is really good but he's a incredible newbie he doesn't know oh Pilar okay he is very good but he's a
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newbie he doesn't necessarily know stuff that they know so sometimes things go well and sometimes they don't but they
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inter they involve him in their working for a fixer named Faraday and Faraday's
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got them on Arisaka and they want to they're trying to steal a chip out of
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the the neck of one of his of this manaka's bodyguards uh and and take it
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out to the car use it to steal information in the car and then put it back in him without him noticing but
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unfortunately they they get halfway david uses the sand of Vista and steals the chip uh they successfully get it out
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to Lucy who is using it in the car to hack the car but despite a really a
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clutch distraction by Rebecca when he gets he gets a call from from uh Arasaka HQ saying you know all hands on deck get
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in here uh you know Tanaka needs you now so he heads out to get in the car but
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David and Lucy are out in the car trying to like just finish and get the information they need just get it done as he starts showing up and like
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shooting at the window which is of course armored so he doesn't immediately get in David is forced to drive to try
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and escape and this leads to a high-speed chase that is full of chaos and explosions and Tiger Claws show up
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and if this this show is nothing if if not a gift for people who just want to see people in in gangs in cyberpunk that
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they hate get shot because my god this whole thing um eventually they they
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manage to they think they've gotten away but the cy the cyber cause catch up to them david manages to use sand of but he
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can't really do much he doesn't he's not a fighter he's not trained yet yeah he doesn't and Lucy kills one with a
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monowires that she's got but then the the other one it's just it's a real mess the the gang group shows up but at this
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point the car is destroyed there's no chance Zasaka will not know that
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something happened so the information they got is already useless as Osaka is going to change their their stuff
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immediately as soon as they as this happened now they've basically changed all their roots and all the information
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you got is out of date so they they get they still get paid because they still got the information but the fixer
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Faraday makes it clear when he shows up at Maine's little afterparty for the for
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the for the crew that he is not happy and that they're going to have to keep they're gonna have to clean this mess up
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um which you know Maine takes there's a there's a there's a combative relationship between Faraday and Maine
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you see here that that leads into stuff that happens later um because you know there's like an old one of the old
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sayings of of Night City is don't trust anybody don't trust anybody but yourself yeah don't even trust yourself that that
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you can't trust that guy he's you you know what he's up to he's like but regardless yeah there's there's a lot of
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stuff underneath the surface and David is basically he's happy to have found a place to be but he's trying to like he
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doesn't understand what he's doing one of the things I I found really interesting in the training montage area is when Maine asks him "Have you ever
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you know do you ever use a gun?" And David's like "No I'll just I'll stick with the sand of East." And he's like "Dude you can't stick with the sand of
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East you don't know enough to keep yourself alive you need you know you don't want to use it until you're like
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much better than you are you're going to have to learn how to use it and so that's an interesting moment too it It's
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funny because it shows the other aspect of of cyberpunk that we haven't really talked about as much is while yes it's a
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extremely dark and fatalistic storyline there are these kind of found family groups that start up yeah and that's
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what the edge runners kind of are right like and edgeunner you'll learn is not an not a new term it's uh runners or
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cyber punks that's another word for them in general it's another term for them but they tend to operate more at the
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fringes of things they're not mainstream known quantities so generally speaking
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you're not going to see them uh taking like huge corpo contracts or being
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sought after by corpos uh as much as running for small-time fixers in this case like Faraday uh who for all of his
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bluster is a small time fixer trying to make it big um or people like if you've
28:02
played the game like Dexter Desawn where he's trying to crawl back into prominence right cuz when you play the
28:08
game as V as Jackie you are edger you are you know you have a small reputation
28:15
in your local community in your local Tom in this case Haywood uh but you're
28:20
not really wellknown and that's what this group kind of is until they start getting more and more prolific jobs and
28:26
starting to get further and further along uh but it does really good job of showing how your crew will try to take
28:32
care of you and Maine makes a comment that I think is uh rather interesting because after the first job's done Maine
28:39
goes and they're celebrating and he he paid not only David's cut of the job but
28:45
paid to have somebody go and get actual like a good supply of immunosuppressors
28:51
for him like and he said to him there's no such thing as wasting Edd's if you're
28:57
investing in yourself or your crew and it's that's kind of like a really important thing to note because it's
29:03
like yes it's a found family yes it's a gang of thugs but that game of gang of thugs takes care of each other right
29:10
yeah they they watch each other's backs maybe you can't trust everybody right not in Night City but you there's a
29:16
there's somebody that you don't have to immediately worry about yeah they at least have your back in a firefight yeah
29:22
and it and it's it's an interesting scene and then like I'm trying to think like episode three and four are
29:27
basically about David growing yes uh Smooth Criminal and Lucky You yeah and I
29:34
mean you want to talk about them no go ahead keep going i'll interject i I don't remember episodes four and five i
29:39
mean three and four that's what I'm I mean I remember them but not enough to give a plot synopsis basically as
29:45
they're taking jobs David uh he's he obviously wants to get closer to Lucy but at the same time he doesn't like he
29:52
he the night of the party he sees her kind of he thinks she leaves with Falco um and he's like "Okay I guess that was
30:00
not going to happen." So you you see him basically training up uh there's a really funny bit where he goes to uh
30:07
Rebecca and Par's house um something he's desperate for a job he's desperate to do something yeah he need he's like
30:14
and there's a really good exchange between him and Mane where he says M's like look well you still are you broke already just spend all that money goes
30:19
it's not about the money it's like you said I mean I need to get better I need to like I need to not be a newbie I need
30:25
to do jobs and so I and get experience uh and my iPads are doing that thing
30:30
again uh but so so basically he um he like I said he goes to various people's
30:36
he goes to each people remember the crew like he goes to Dory at one point uh he goes to Kiwi and then he goes to to
30:42
Rebecca and Pelar's house with a delivery and you get a sense of the Rebecca Parel dynamic which is that even
30:48
Rebecca can't stand Pelar but also Rebecca is unhinged oh yeah 100% and and
30:54
I and she doesn't have any cyberware at this point either no well I think she's got eyes it looks like she's got my
31:01
She's got the eyes uh but the thing is is I think Rebecca is there's something up with her cuz she looks like a child
31:08
but she is very definitely not a child like this is an adult woman i'm not sure why she looks like that i don't know if
31:13
she just just isn't very large or what's going on um but it it's interesting to
31:19
watch the dynamics and to see them do take to take jobs and how the jobs pan out
31:25
um I'm trying to think of like eventually uh I want to say V so bad uh
31:31
David and Lucy eventually do get their moment together where like after she had after they'd had their original meeting
31:37
and they did the moon BD and she told him about how she wanted to go to the moon he had like he thought she had like
31:43
set him up and was lying about and she says I wasn't lying about that that was for real and he goes "Well I'm glad you
31:49
weren't lying." And that they have a night together and after they have the night together uh David is back talking
31:55
to Maine and and Maine's like "What's with you you're confident now did you get laid?" And there's like like they
32:01
this the hazing they do to him is it's really kind of funny because it's affectionate it's like a what you'd
32:06
expect for like a gang of rough necks but they consider themselves a team you know they're a crew it it does a lot to
32:12
establish how this group works how they operate maine's idea is that you know he takes care of his crew that everybody
32:19
gets a cut nobody gets left with nothing and it's it's fun to watch but at the same time that also sets up the things
32:25
that are coming like Maine starts having problems with his hands yeah and part of that is because Maine Maine like a lot
32:31
of other folks in in Night City and this is sort of a perfect personification of
32:36
each one of these characters represents an archetype inside of uh the cyberpunk
32:41
universe almost to a tea and I'm absolutely they map really well to a pen and paper group yeah and I absolutely
32:47
think that that was intentional so Maine is the the uh cybernetic jock he's a
32:53
Chrome jockey um he believes that the only way that he can continue to make it big and to claw himself up to the top is
33:01
to continue to make himself stronger and for him that means making sure he's
33:06
completely ched out um the problem with that as we talked about before is that
33:11
cyber psychosis is a real thing um in the game there's a way to cure cyber
33:18
psychosis which is unheard of up to this point there might be a way we don't actually ever see anyone get cured we
33:25
know that re Reggie seems to think she's got something but we never see anybody come out of it alive that's fair but the
33:32
and the only people we see who survive uh being picked up by Maxtack are people who join Max Tac which well that's the
33:38
thing we we do actually a counter point we do know that there is a cure or at
33:44
least No yes we don't know a cure we know that they can keep these people from going completely insane but how are
33:51
they doing it that's the thing we we don't know we're going to talk about that probably in the future matt and I have already talked about this cuz there
33:57
was a tweet that was coming out last night and I've been saying this for weeks anyway but like so an example of
34:03
this is in the promo uh release for uh or announcement for Cyberpunk 2077 there
34:09
was a girl with mantis arms that was literally in cyber psychosis that was murdering everybody when you play the
34:15
game she's a she's part of Night City PD Max TAC yep and she still got the the
34:20
mantis blade she used to kill people she still does but we don't know but when you talk to her though when you talk to
34:25
her she does not sound like somebody who's not cyber psychotic did you when
34:30
you you can you killed him did you like it you know that moment where the blood's flowing with the lights going
34:36
out and they're you got a gift you want to join Maxtac i'm getting the sense that literally everybody in Maxtac is in
34:42
full-on cyber psychosis and they're just somehow kept quiescent until they go out
34:47
and kill people that's the sense I get uh but it's it's really creepy that moment getting back to the game however
34:54
I mean to the show now I'm doing it uh so Maine's having problems faraday keeps like you know trying to get them to to
35:00
get that information from Arisaka and it all leads to like a mission where they they find out that the guy that they
35:07
were trying to get the information on he's got uh a weird hobby and this is actually interesting because it ties
35:13
back to the doc stuff yeah um you you go since you said yeah you go there's a there's a lot of we're
35:19
going to there's a lot of looping here and I apologize but the idea is that brain dances are a thing brain dances are a form of entertainment where you
35:26
buy experiences if you've played the game you're introduced to it very very early on when you meet Judy and Evelyn
35:32
uh in the Mox season you you get to go to uh the the actual bar right lizz's
35:37
bar uh which is a brain dance bar um the idea is that you can buy experiences
35:43
that you can have yourself there is a subsect of it very much like in there was a problem in real life um and I
35:50
remember growing up hearing about like this being a thing um and I apologize this might be uh a bit much for folks
35:58
but before Joe gets into this uh spoiler warning for people who who don't want to
36:03
hear about specific violence or death related imagery it's it this is something that I know triggers a bunch
36:09
of people so just if if you think you might be one of those people maybe skip ahead a minute and then we'll we'll be
36:15
talking about stuff that's that's less horrible so go ahead Joe yeah so the idea is that it's a subset of brain
36:20
dances that revolves around uh essentially snuff films and snuff culture uh you deal with it in the game
36:26
it's deal with it here there it is or in this particular case snuff through cyber
36:31
psychosis um it is an important thing because again we've been talking about cyber psychosis all the way through this
36:37
but this particular executive has a thing for it and there's only one person that is known for tailoring specifically
36:46
to one high-end clientele and two that particular subg genre combined um so the
36:52
the group figures this out they find it out also thanks to David and the fact that he used to David was selling the
36:57
the XPDS back in episodes one and two through through the ripper dock not through the the one that was doing the
37:03
editing um they figure it out they go and they try to uh assault uh this
37:09
person and get them held hostage so the fact that they can arrange a ambush for
37:15
the Arosaka executive um they managed to eventually do so after realizing that
37:20
the editor of these things actually sets up these events themselves in order to
37:26
create the high-end content quote unquote uh that his customers demand uh
37:32
they do eventually uh wind up beating him into submission to the point where
37:37
he agrees to help set up Tanaka tanaka shows up and gets jumped and gets taken
37:42
out uh by a combination of both David and Maine because both of them have to
37:48
take him down because he's an Arosaka uh executive with tons of money in charge
37:54
as we find out throughout this endeavor of their essentially their competitor for Milit Wing so he's got a ton of
38:00
cyber wear in him and it's all really highend stuff come out like the only reason that he doesn't kill Maine is
38:06
that David Sandiston is also experimental and he manages to to interpose himself long enough for Maine
38:11
to hit the guy it's it's real nasty in the scuffle however the first thing the Arasaka
38:17
executive did was launch off a bunch of like needle spines out of his hands and ironically the only person who gets hit
38:23
is the uh it's JK I believe his name is yes the uh the the brain dance editor
38:28
who is a ripe piece of feces yeah it couldn't have happened to a nicer person but it's it is his interplay with David
38:35
is also interesting because it sets up a lot of stuff that that happens later in the in the series a lot of stuff about
38:41
cyber psychosis and about what's what we're seeing so I want to try to move this along because we only have so much
38:47
time like the throughout this they they start jacking into uh the executive and start digging through his Tanaka and
38:54
start digging through his his files his memory to learn a couple things one that he is in charge of this complete program
39:02
that's moved completely under him specifically to try to create militarygrade cyberware to compete with
39:07
Milletch the second thing is that there's a list of all of these candidates um well first of all Kiwi
39:14
tries kiwi can't get through the ice so Lucy goes in plus and plus Kiwi's has a
39:19
problem in that Maine starts to have his cyber psychosis and he literally beats Kiwi up he takes her jaw off
39:27
which is very questionable but so Lucy go ahead uh yeah I'll go as they're
39:33
doing all this they're basically Lucy's diving in to get the information david's watching Tanaka he's supposed to keep
39:38
giving him injections to knock him out uh Maine is losing his his mind and like
39:45
the the Daario the person who's basically been his kind of second in command and and girlfriend i'm not sure
39:52
girlfriend or boyfriend i I couldn't tell you it's Daario it doesn't matter uh they're trying to to get you know
39:57
he's Dario's trying to get Maine through all of this uh Falco is just pissed and and he's like he took Kiwi and tried to
40:04
get her some help and he also told Faraday the the fixer what happened so
40:10
now Faraday shows up while Maine's trying to do something and I don't know
40:16
what happens i don't know what Faraday does to Maine like I never you don't see it you just know that Faraday's there
40:22
maine's reacting now you're like is Faraday just a hallucination that Maine's having or was he actually there
40:28
i don't know the answer to that question it's never very clearly stated but with what you find out later it's likely
40:33
anyway Lucy finds out that David is one of the subjects that they want David because he's got such a high tolerance
40:40
for cyberware so now she gets like as their relationship has been getting closer she now is like I've lost so many
40:46
people I care about i can't let this person I care about die uh Arisaka has
40:52
managed to figure out where Tanaka is tanaka blows up his own brain to keep them from getting everything uh but but
40:58
Lucy manages to get almost all of it but then hides it because it's David's involved and she doesn't want David to
41:05
be hurt then Maxtac attacks and Maine goes full cyber psycho and he's just
41:10
murdering people left and right uh at one point including his own partner including his own partner uh there's a
41:17
point where the the uh Brain Dance editor Trauma Team shows up because he
41:23
has Trauma Team Platinum so there's now a three-way gunfight with with uh the police uh trauma team and the you know
41:30
Maine basically being a lunatic daario tries to stop him dies david gets Lucy
41:36
out but then tries to go back in and save Maine because you know order it's actually not the trauma team for the
41:42
editor it's the trauma team for Tanaka oh okay yeah you're right for um but everything goes haywire um it's it's
41:49
just it is it is the perfect encapsulation of a of a bad mission in Cyberbunk it is it is perfect everything
41:56
goes sideways right everything goes sideways in like six different ways uh and at the end of it Maine is making a
42:03
Viking funeral out of you know gas canisters because everything is run off of chew too in the future and so there's
42:09
all these cans of like pressurized choo that people use for fuel and he's just piling them up on Daario's body and as
42:16
Maxtack shows up because this has gone out of hand and and they're they're here to stop the cyber psycho he just blows
42:22
the whole building up well and before that I want to there's something I want to go back to real quick so main cyber
42:28
psychosis is a moment from his youth where he goes back where he's running before he's been um basically upgraded
42:34
before he has any cyberware he makes it to the edge of the city which is like the outskirts this is beyond the nomad's
42:40
land this is where the road stops and this is kind of a thing where like these
42:45
cities there is travel between them but it's not like it used to be a lot of the cities are isolated or cut off from each
42:51
other uh due to changing climate or or what have you um but he actually sees
42:56
David and we see that cyber psychosis at this point mostly replaces the imagery of what's actually happening around you
43:03
with almost like a void like you can't see who's there or it interposes somebody else over the body that you're
43:09
seeing so like you don't actually see the person however in this particular case David is able to get through to
43:15
Maine which I think is very telling on how close Maine felt with David and
43:22
David's going to last stand with him and even Maine in the the throws of his cyber psychosis puts his hand on David's
43:29
gun and says "No dog it's my time you're good get out of here go love Lucy and
43:35
figure stuff out you got to keep going you got to It's your It's your show now you're not the rookie anymore." And
43:42
David winds up running out and getting into the vehicle and they wind up getting out of their um you know as
43:48
everything blows up essentially and Maine is gone um but this is I'm going to tell you guys something i thought
43:55
this was the end of the show like I watched it tonight i thought well that's got to be it man that's that's
44:01
Wow that's that was dark and then Joe today was like so we talked about covering that and like yeah all right and I was like I just should make sure
44:07
I've got everything set up see if I get some notes and that's when I realized there were four more episodes and those
44:13
four episodes are a ride and I don't know how we can possibly get through
44:18
just a synopsis of them and still discuss this i got a little bit I got a little bit here so time advances forward
44:25
and we see that um in in this particular moment a couple things have happened one David has taken over running the crew um
44:32
they've they've at this point uh Par is gone he had they had run that run in with a cyber uh a cyber psychosis uh
44:39
freak um that wound up killing Pelar that the group had to take down earlier
44:44
so now it's just Rebecca uh it's Rebecca and David as basically the main runners falco uh still doing his stuff uh as
44:52
their wheelman who's voiced by Matt Mercer by the way um you have uh Kiwi
44:57
who is their netrunner still and Lucy has taken a step back after losing Maine after everything that happened and
45:03
learning about Arisaka's involvement she's taken a step back um she's not
45:08
with the team anymore but we see David is also essentially roided up he's almost kitted out like Maine was new
45:15
legs new arms new everything uh and they he's like at this point he's he is significantly augmented and he is not an
45:22
edgeunner anymore the crew is well known they're they're a well-known quantity of the earth a successful group um and
45:29
they're citing actual fans he has actual fans he has there's actually up and cominging runners who want to join his
45:35
crew yeah um so that starts to move forward and we start to see uh the
45:41
relationship between Lucy and David has evolved a little bit uh where now they're living together they have a huge
45:47
apartment um but Lucy notices that David's arm is starting to do that shake
45:52
the same thing that Maine's did even with his super high tolerance she's trying to get him to walk it back a
45:59
little bit and just like and it's a repetition of what Daario said to Maine just before Maine finally lost it but he
46:05
doesn't want to do that because he feels obligated to keep the rest of the team safe because of what happened with Maine in the first place this is what Maine
46:11
said to Daario yes it's actually really like I said like Joe said this is it uses the secularity of its of its
46:18
storytelling to propel it forward it's like it's tumbling forward it's It's really It's well done so as we move
46:24
forward we notice that Faraday the fixer is not done with the Tanaka stuff calls in David for a meet at the afterlife um
46:31
there are some NPC appearances throughout the show like we get to see Rogue um Adam and Smasher obviously is
46:37
here we'll talk about that in a minute um but Faraday still wants the information on Arisaka that the David's
46:44
group never got so David takes on the contract tries to get Lucy involved lucy can't she's basically going on her rogue
46:50
mission uh killing off anybody involved in the project on Arisaka's side uh as
46:55
we find out Arisaka essentially uh raised her from a child we don't know if she was gan grown or vat grown or if she
47:02
was naturally born orphan with a gift uh because Arosak is interested in the old net we know that for that's a that's an
47:08
old thing that's an you know nothing out of the ordinary but they're looking for information lost on the internet that
47:15
happened before the that happened before the collapse things that might be still out there the old information um when
47:22
all of her friends died she escaped ran went to Night City eventually because you could hide in Night City very very
47:28
easily but now she's Arisaka's wound up back on her radar and she's one up on Arosaka's radar we're going to get to
47:34
that in a minute um Faraday then is flipping sides when he realizes that Milletch will not give him anything more
47:42
for the operation to run because he failed so spectacularly arranging things and figuring things out in the first
47:48
place where he then reaches out to Arosaka counter intelligence and says "I want a job with you instead i'll sell
47:54
you everything I have." Arisaka counter intelligence goes "That's a really good idea um tell you what get us the the the
48:01
piece of hardware and all the information on it and kill everybody that knows about the cyber skeleton project go ahead and do that we'll make
48:07
sure that you come in because you know promises are great and gold in Night City as things move on they start moving
48:14
towards that that eventual confrontation because now we see that Kiwi and Faraday
48:20
are in league together because Faraday is trying to move up faraday is involved in the capture of Lucy uh and is
48:26
involved in bartering Lucy to Arisaka as another chip to move forward and has her trapped in her own little thing david
48:32
proceeds to try to go through the plan uh and I I I'm speeding through a bunch of stuff here and I apologize folks uh
48:39
but eventually it leads to a heist where they're trying to go after an aerosol cargo container that actually has a
48:45
piece of tech that they want in this case the cyber skeleton uh Kiwi gets them set up on the job they go after it
48:51
fal's there rebecca's there uh and it's David and uh Kiwi they wind up breaking
48:57
through they wind up trashing the the vehicle uh they get through it and they get inside and they notice that it is
49:03
that they're told by Kiwi that it's the cyber skeleton david gets a call on his
49:09
uh basically his his tap his cortical implant his mental smartphone from from
49:14
Lucy and I'm air quoting this saying that he has to save her he has to get into the rig it's the only way to do it
49:20
etc etc and Kiwi miraculously has the activation codes on a data slate that she tosses to David rebecca is pleading
49:27
with David not to do it because Rebecca is kind of in love with David but not
49:33
really it's kind of weird and murky i would say that Rebecca has has made David the emotional center of her life
49:41
it's not as easy as being in love with him or you know what have you he's replaced her brother and her surrogate
49:48
father so he's now like she's she's put him on that shelf mhm and she she does
49:53
love him but it's not necessarily it at one point she did want to to have sex with him because that's that's she's she
50:00
was hinting at it but at this point it's moved past that he's somebody of of importance to her she doesn't have any
50:06
family left david is that for her and it it is kind of tragic actually the
50:11
Rebecca David relationship is is really painful and tragic and also kind of beautiful in a way um but one of the
50:18
things we find out is that as David's cyber psychosis has been getting worse at one point he snapped and almost
50:23
killed Doc and Doc gave him he's like "Hey take this is the most this is the militaryra uh immunosuppressants this is
50:32
all I've got you've got nine uses of this when you're out of this you're done
50:38
if you if you use all nine of these that there won't be anything left of you you will go you will go crazy it'll be like
50:45
an elastic snapping so David tells Rebecca "I need you only you can know
50:50
about this i have this medication i have to take it if I can't you know I trust
50:56
you to do this for me." So Rebecca is basically David is piling around on that the thing that Joe was just talking
51:02
about the cyber skeleton he's he installs it despite Rebecca's pleading so now he's running around killing
51:08
people with this thing which is all part of the plan the Ursaka wants him to wipe out Militc's uh troops and then they'll
51:14
they'll recapture him because you know he'll he'll probably die and so Rebecca's literally at points jumping on
51:20
him and making the the injections go into him to keep him sane that's what she's doing during the fight it's it's a
51:28
big part of everything that happens from here on in which I'm going to let Joe finish off because I keep interrupting
51:33
him because we're both so excited so Lucy does actually call David tells him that Faraday uh has basically uh double
51:41
crossed them sold them out to Arisaka that the entire point was that he was supposed to get in the frame for this
51:47
like he she explains everything that she knows um and the final confrontation starts to happen so he does get in the
51:53
frame he takes out all of the milit
51:59
uh to basically reclaim their tech or to go after them um and then immediately
52:04
starts heading a off after uh Kiwi because Kiwi had basically taken Falco
52:10
out uh and taken back off to meet up with Faraday uh they now know that they
52:15
have to go and get Lucy back so now they're in the vehicle they're moving forward and they're going to take a run
52:21
at they know that they're everything is going back to Arosaka so they go ahead and uh basically are going to make a run
52:28
on Arosaka HQ uh huge fights ensue involving the uh Night City police uh
52:35
Aerosaka Milletch everybody's trying to take them out and David is just going to town in the the cyber skeleton which is
52:42
essentially his torso and head inside of a mech he is essentially slotted in if you're familiar with 40k it's almost
52:48
like a dreadnot at this point um and again Rebecca is slamming the the
52:53
imunosuppresses to keep him lucid and keep him present for as long as possible uh they do wind up going getting in they
53:00
wind up going into the uh Arosaka headquarters where uh moments before Faraday has released or given uh Lucy to
53:08
the Arosaka executives and all of a sudden as somebody is trying to kill
53:14
Faraday because that was the whole plan was to eliminate the loose ends and after Kiwi had been betrayed by Faraday
53:19
because remember part of Faraday's contract was eliminate everybody who knows about the cyber skeleton Kiwi
53:24
being one of them uh and Kiwi telling them you know here I tagged his vehicle so you can track when he gets there uh
53:31
David shows up in the S and uses the Sandy and the exoskeleton to save
53:36
Faraday uh because David wants to be the one to dismantle him he doesn't want him
53:42
to die easy right nope and he he certainly starts that process by crushing him with a gravity wave from
53:47
the exoskeleton yep uh and now this is where this is where Adam Smasher Go ahead oh basically throughout this Adam
53:55
Smasher has been established as a boogeyman like David doesn't even believe he exists uh he's he's a
54:01
character who if you've played Cyberpunk the the game or if you played the original Pen and Paper you know who he
54:06
is uh he's one of the big names in in Cyberpunk 2077 you see him back in the flashback uh capturing Johnny for
54:13
Arisaka and essentially being the one to dispose of his body uh if you you play
54:19
to the end of the game slight slight spoilers here you get into a climactic battle with him which is the hardest
54:24
fight in the game by a lot it is a very very hard fight and so seeing him in
54:31
action here you get to see that there's a reason that it's such a hard fight and it also makes you realize V is an astonishing badass because Smasher goes
54:39
toe-to-toe with David in this cyber skeleton and he wins because don't
54:45
forget Adam Smasher has things like his own version of the crash he has his own version of like impervious skin and
54:51
cyberware he is every part the equal because originally the cyber skeleton was something that was being developed
54:57
uh basically for Adam Smasher it was supposed to be an upgrade for him for
55:03
2.0 and so in this particular point they were it was always intended to find
55:08
somebody who could interface with the cyber skeleton to fight Adam Smasher to
55:13
see if it would be an upgrade for him or not yeah and that's what he wanted more
55:19
than anything was to prove it wasn't necessary so he's going to town on David david meanwhile does not care about this
55:25
fight and this actually goes back to the beginning where David with the Arisaka kids David doesn't want to fight mhm
55:30
because he's got Lucy in his arms and all he wants to do is get her the f out of there and so that's what he does he
55:37
he tells the the group to like you know to scatter he grabs Lucy and he jumps
55:43
out the basically jumps out the freaking building and Smasher chases him he's like at one point he's sliding down the
55:48
building using the arms of the mech to scrape down and Smasher is like going down an elevator next to him shooting at
55:54
him with a giant machine gun and and the rest of the crew does try to help when they reach street level and it
56:00
unfortunately results in their demise um although I don't know if Falco is still alive rebecca Falco is still alive yeah
56:06
Rebecca gets eviscerated by Adam Smasher falco gets his cyber arm ripped completely off uh Lucy cannot hack Adam
56:14
Smasher he actually physically grabs the hack out of cyerspace air and crushes it
56:20
causing her to short circuit a little bit um and eventually it winds up with David and and him falling through with
56:28
the the rest of the bodies of the other folks falling through the street into the underground containment centers
56:33
essentially of Arisaka because Arisaka headquarters is built on top of some very ancient ruins this is established
56:40
in the game the pen paper the ruins of the original Arisaka tower that got blown up by Johnny Silverhand yes and in
56:46
that rubble uh David is defeated right uh it is this moment where he he can't
56:52
do anymore he is basically almost not at home but there's a very beautiful shot
56:57
of the moonlight uh beaming down through the hole that they made to get down here
57:02
and David just laughing maniacally where Adam says "This is the most fun I've had
57:08
in a very long time you would make a very good construct." Now this is an
57:13
important bit constructs are a center point of the video game of 2077 constructs are a boogeyman inside of the
57:20
tabletop role playing game as it is released now and the idea is that you can take somebody's me mental their a
57:27
map of them just like they did with uh Johnny Silverhand as he was the essentially the prototype but very
57:33
likely what they also did with Adam Smasher um and map it to essentially a
57:39
completely cybernetic body where everything that made the person that person is still present but there is no
57:46
meat left and so he makes that offer to David and David tells him I don't give a bleep and then Adam Sasher says pity and
57:54
gives the final blow all David was the whole time David was just fighting to get uh Lucy and Falco time to get away
58:00
which they which they did and they have Faraday's money from the the gig they've basically you know they they've got the
58:06
cash that they were going to get paid so Falco tells him that tells Lucy that David had basically told him you know
58:13
get her out of here and to split the money with her and that leads up to our final scene uh which is basically Lucy
58:20
had always said she wanted to get up to the moon to get away from Earth because you know her entire life on Earth had been hell and so it cuts to her on the
58:28
moon trip she's actually like you know basically out in a buggy if you ever saw the Futurama episode where they go to
58:33
the moon it's very similar in that it's just on the moon unfortunately it's almost theme park in a way and so she
58:39
goes off and she takes off her like she goes gets off of the trolley and she's walking around the moon and then she sees David the way he was the first time
58:46
they did the BD he's like I can feel the sun and it's a it's a really haunting moment because it's very much in the
58:53
cyberpunk tradition of all the stuff you lose you know but it's interesting in the fact that unlike most cyberpunk
58:59
stories while it is a sad ending for a lot of the characters it is oddly
59:05
hopeful for Lucy because she got to escape she got out and that doesn't
59:12
happen night City does not let you go uh so like that is sort of like an
59:17
important thing like even though she lost David and lost the found family she got out she got what she wanted and
59:23
she's alive right and so it's a really interesting encapsulation of storytelling from the very first episode
59:29
to the very last scene where every theme that you can think about in cyberpunk is
59:34
just really well highlighted the disparity of the city uh how it how helpless one can feel how easy it is to
59:42
feel helpless how much that Yeah how helplessness pushes you the helplessness
59:47
the feeling of I you know I've got to do something i've got to do anything to make a change will lead you to like you
59:53
see over and over again something I like to call the sunk cost fallacy because that's what it's called i didn't make that up um but the sunk cost fallacy
1:00:00
keeps coming up maine's whole thing about I can't stop now i'm too close we've got to just push through this last
1:00:05
thing david's exact same thing he's like I lost my mom i lost Maine i can't lose you too i have to do whatever it takes
1:00:12
they keep that keeps happening people keep making these decisions that aren't the that aren't good decisions even Kiwi
1:00:20
does kiwi knows she shouldn't go at one point she's leaving town she tells uh
1:00:25
Faraday "That's it we're done pay me i'm leaving town." He's like "Ah unfortunately I can't i need your help
1:00:30
with one more thing so if you come back here then I'll give you your money." And she knows she knows she shouldn't go
1:00:35
back she knows she should just write it off at this point but she goes back cuz she can't she's done too much to leave
1:00:41
without the money and that's how she ends up getting scragged that that's a theme that is so p much a part of this show it is really astonishing yeah and
1:00:49
and not only that but also like the hopefulness that that propels you like it's easy to write off cyberpunk as just
1:00:57
a dystopian cautionary tale which it is uh but there are so many bits of
1:01:02
characterization and humanity that still exists in a world of chrome and uncaring
1:01:07
all these people all of even these gangs to a level are they want something better they want something more than
1:01:14
what they've been allotted in life they understand that the world around them is broken and bitter and it will chew you
1:01:22
up and spit you out unless you do something about it and so they band together and sometimes for better or
1:01:28
worse but there's always that humanity essence of hope and we talked about this when we talked about Cyberpunk the game
1:01:33
before which was there's always this underlying theme of does humanity
1:01:39
prevail and when do you lose your humanity and the show really does encapsulate it and also makes an
1:01:46
argument I would say that you don't lose your humanity that you essentially die
1:01:51
before that happens but at the struggle at the root of it at the core of it it's that human need for love and progression
1:01:59
and for something better that is the driving factor for everyone and everything that occurs and it is oddly
1:02:08
upbeat in that despite the grim dark nature of the anime and I really
1:02:13
appreciate i think it I think it was really well done what do you think man i mean I don't dispute that it's very well done um I don't know how much hope I see
1:02:20
in it but I do think it's interesting because despite everything David and Lucy made a connection david and Rebecca
1:02:27
made a connection uh David and Maine made a connection uh even David and Falco hell I'd even say even David and
1:02:33
Kiwi mhm uh for all that Kiwi like Kiwi is to me is like a really fascinating character because you don't see a lot of
1:02:39
emotion from her but you get the sense that a lot of what happens is because you know she's the one who found Lucy
1:02:46
and recruited her but Lucy has the Arasaka you know training and the the
1:02:51
absolute cutting line equipment and all that stuff because of what happened to her that was horrible obviously but Lucy
1:02:58
but Lucy doesn't share any of that Ki doesn't know where it all comes from she just knows she's been she's been
1:03:03
replaced She knows that Lucy is better than her mhm and and she finds out when Maine
1:03:09
smashes in her face plate and Lucy steps in and gets the job done that she couldn't do and she couldn't do it even
1:03:16
before Maine attacked her she the the reason he attacks her is he goes into a rage because she can't do it she can't
1:03:22
hack the Arisaka executive is his ice is too good so that's what leads Kiwi
1:03:27
ultimately to betraying the group is that knowledge that you know I am that's a big part of Cyberpunk is that idea am
1:03:33
I past my prime can I not do this anymore what happens to me if I can't do this anymore cuz fading away is one of
1:03:39
the worst things you can do that's what happened with Maine maine doesn't want to let go because he knows once he lets
1:03:46
go if he if he tries to dole back that's the end for him he is not going to can
1:03:51
be a a pre-tier solo anymore he's not going to be someone people want to hire and so it's that there's always that
1:03:57
struggle of hope versus fear that idea that you know I want something better
1:04:03
but the only way I can see to get it is to just screw everybody over and ultimately that is the sabotage that's
1:04:11
you people always end up getting destroyed by this because they don't have anybody to turn to at the end you
1:04:16
know Faraday dies because he literally burned all his bridges um and that's the you know that's that's why David's
1:04:22
sacrifice is hopeful the fact that he refuses Smasher's offer even though he doesn't really understand it and more
1:04:28
importantly that he managed to save her yeah and that and that's really it right like it's because David unlike Maine he
1:04:34
wasn't concerned about being past his prime like that wasn't it it wasn't the fading away that bothered him it wasn't
1:04:41
anything like that he kept going because he wanted to protect his found family in the way that he could not protect his
1:04:47
mother right and and he couldn't protect Maine so And he couldn't protect Maine so he he picked up the mantle right and
1:04:53
it was that almost like selfless sab like selfless self- sabotage essentially
1:04:59
i will push myself to breaking to keep those I love around me safe which is a
1:05:04
unique thing in cyberpunk as well because comparing it to Faraday like David is the the foil to Faraday in that
1:05:11
regard and it's the same thing he's a foil to Adam Smasher in that regard adam Smash Adam Smasher's uh ascent into
1:05:19
godliness and the boogeyman of Arisaka was all done through the personal
1:05:24
selfishness of I need to be the best i'm gonna keep going i'm never gonna fade
1:05:30
away smasher is a shark literally a mentally speaking his personality is that of a shark he He will never stop
1:05:36
moving and he will eat anything he thinks he can get away with like that's that's just what he is uh and David
1:05:44
didn't care if he lived or died his death his his legacy was completely unimportant no it wasn't what he was
1:05:50
there for now the interesting thing about this and the reason why we wanted to talk about this is not just because it was a really well done show it sort
1:05:56
of expands upon the universe of Night City in the current form of 2077
1:06:01
uh quite a bit it gives you the prequel leading up to essentially V's story run um there are references to the anime now
1:06:09
spattered throughout the game you can find them you can find journals that you know refer to Faraday you can find uh
1:06:17
Lucy's Monowire you can actually literally get it uh you can get Rebecca's guns um you can find cyber
1:06:24
hands that mimic pars um you can find the uh arm the the punching thing uh or
1:06:30
the shotgun that Maine used um but beyond that it's now Oh David's jacket
1:06:36
which was in David's jacket originally david's jacket is in there yep um so all these things are there they're
1:06:41
everpresent and they're they're in the story moving forward but now we know that there's another there's an
1:06:47
expansion essentially coming for Cyberpunk there's a continuation of the story coming and that's interesting on a
1:06:53
lot of levels because cyber punk when you get to the end of it depending on which ending you get um some of them are
1:06:59
very bleak and very like that's it that's the end of the story um so it's interesting actually you know what I
1:07:04
don't know that they are bleak that's that's interesting because you've you've you've created this thought in me I wasn't thinking about it before but like
1:07:10
the the ending where you become essentially the the uh the the top I
1:07:16
don't know what you'd call you but you own the afterlife you're like a big You're the runner you're the top runner yeah and you go on that mission for the
1:07:23
guy who we're going to talk about a lot next week that's actually got hope in it because you know you're trying to do
1:07:29
something to to change your fate if you go with the nomad ending you've got like
1:07:34
a family now no matter who you were which which kind of V you were when you played this game you've made a family
1:07:40
and you and they are going off and you're leaving Night City you're doing exactly what we just talked about
1:07:46
doesn't get to happen or the Judy ending where you are out of the city yeah exactly you are leaving Night City and
1:07:53
you're you know you're you're that itself is a really good one or the one where Johnny takes over your body which
1:08:00
I I feel like at this point guys the game's been out since 2020 that that is a possible ending and but even that one
1:08:07
I don't feel like the is necessarily gone yeah uh and like and that's the other thing is that with this and and
1:08:13
that's another thing that I bring up the comment from Adam Smasher is really sticking with me you would make an
1:08:18
interesting construct with all of the things that you interface with with all the personality stuff that you interface
1:08:23
with with Alt Cunningham with the Voodoo Boys with the the relic uh chip being a
1:08:30
thing there is nothing that says V is completely gone besides the game just trying to tell you that it is but never
1:08:37
actually confirming that it is we don't know what exists beyond the black barrier and the show makes reference to
1:08:42
that as well the barriers that have been put up to keep the old world the old net demons at bay and keep like the city
1:08:50
internets running and separate are its own thing but we don't know what happens after that we don't know what AI
1:08:57
constructs occur we don't know much about alt let's be honest we get like little hints and pieces but not a not a
1:09:04
ton of it so it is it is really interesting um the the the Adam Smasher thing also comes up with an interesting
1:09:10
question is Smasher is there anything organic left of Smasher or is he like a construct in a machine and my money is
1:09:17
on construct and a machine because why would Arisaka let him go that's his that is certainly one way to look at it absolutely but keep in mind that he was
1:09:22
loyal to Yoronobu so what's up with that no no I got you he totally worked for Arasaka but what was the deal with that
1:09:29
did or did Yoronobu offer him something what did he offer him yoronobu had the chip what was up with that and when was
1:09:37
the offerility i'm never going to let this go when Smasher comes into the room
1:09:43
and you and Jackie are hiding he if you have the threat detector he is the only
1:09:50
person in that room who con yep now I know that that's because he is the only person in that room that you ever
1:09:56
actually end up fighting i get that i understand that that's a mechanical thing but at the same time I keep
1:10:03
thinking about it does he know you're there cuz that only happens if they know you're there and that's and that I've
1:10:08
been struggling with that cuz I just started a fresh playthrough again and that caught me as well because it's something I hadn't thought about and but
1:10:14
I'm like but yeah he would know cuz there's zero there zero chance he wouldn't have scanned the room as he was walking in there's zero but he's he's
1:10:21
nothing but scanners and there's zero chance that like a thin flimsy smart TV
1:10:26
wall would keep him from scanning you so why why didn't he do anything or did he just not care or was he not programmed
1:10:34
to care because it wasn't an immediate threat or and this is the one I think is more likely did he want it to happen
1:10:41
because he wanted his freedom he might have wanted Yoronobu and he might have thought those armed people in there are
1:10:47
going to kill Yoronobu and they're going to kill Suburo and then I'm out of here
1:10:53
or it's part of something if he could get control of the program clearly he had unrestricted access to Makoshi he
1:11:00
did cuz he comes down he comes down to to fight you if both Saburo and Yuronobu are dead he can just kill us take the
1:11:08
chip and go down into Arisaka if if he is a construct on the older version of
1:11:15
the technology inside of like a cyborg body now he could get a meat body back
1:11:20
also think about it this way too where do you fight him inside Makoshi right outside the main frame doors yeah yeah
1:11:27
so there's a there's a lot going on here and the show has opened up so many more questions but also set the stage for so
1:11:34
much more to happen in this universe in video games and I really do hope that it is something that continues on because
1:11:40
one I really enjoy the video game despite all of its flaws despite everything that happened with it it's a
1:11:46
good game they fixed they've fixed a lot of the flaws at this point well I'm talking about from like developer standpoint as well yeah but I think at
1:11:52
this point that's that's that's you know inside baseball for for people who don't know that kind of thing you can go and
1:11:58
play it and it's got there's quests and stuff in this game that are unlike any quests I've ever seen in any game I've
1:12:05
ever played uh that that some of them are you know some of them are kind of boring but some of them are just astonishing mhm like the Sinner Man
1:12:12
chain or even just the oneoff gig that you get to find out who you know who scrolled
1:12:18
the BD yep that of the of the the murdered boy like it's it's the gut-wrenching i can't leave that room
1:12:25
until I shoot those two people i can't do it i have tried and it's just Yeah
1:12:30
there's a lot to this game i feel like it would be a shame if they don't do more if they don't do a sequel or if
1:12:36
they don't do more DLC for it it would be a shame to let this go because now they've got they've gotten the Fallout 3
1:12:44
out you know they've made their Fallout 3 now they can make their Fallout New Vegas
1:12:50
because I'm I'm upfront with you guys this is the best Bethesda game I've ever played it feel It plays just like a
1:12:55
Bethesda game it feels like It feels like either um like Fallout with slightly less apocalypse or Skyrim with
1:13:04
a lot more apocalypse and and guns and so many guns it just Yeah I there's
1:13:09
there's a ton to this story and getting also just just on a personal level getting to see David's life Yeah really
1:13:16
brings home how garbage happy this the life is in Night City how for all that
1:13:21
Night City isn't the main character this time around it's still Night City is still basically the a big character and
1:13:27
you get to see just how awful it is yeah and it's interesting because it's
1:13:33
juxtaposed against those those themes of hope so it is there's a reason why we talk about it a lot there's a reason why
1:13:39
Matt and I are both very excited about it it is a a storyrich a thematically
1:13:45
rich uh setting right and the game does well to capture it the anime did well to
1:13:51
capture it uh and going forward I just want more i want to see what they can do with this i want to see what interesting
1:13:56
stories they come up with because at the end of the game even if V even if V dies
1:14:02
Night City is still there and Night City is the main character and nobody can tell me otherwise oh absolutely yeah
1:14:08
absolutely um but I think that's going to do it for us so I'm going to Is there any parting thoughts before I I write us
1:14:14
out here i want to say upfront that next next time if you don't mind me saying this next time we're probably going to
1:14:20
talk more about cyberpunk yes because there's something both Joe and I have been coming at from different directions for a long time now yes there's there's
1:14:27
a series of quests that are very much about the question uh that we've just kind of we've kind of leaked in with
1:14:33
Adam Smasher and the construct thing is I'm just going to say the words neuroplasticity yeah and leave it from
1:14:38
there but there's a figure at the and in this in this quest chain a figure who
1:14:43
kind of around the edges of it who appears again later in one of the endings of the game who I think really
1:14:49
needs an exploration and also who follows you throughout the game if you pay attention on a lot of the quests you do he's there watching but uh we're and
1:14:58
just sort of pull the curtain back we are going to be talking about uh unresolved or long-term storylines in
1:15:03
our next our next recording um whether it's going to be in games or media in general uh we're going to be talking
1:15:10
about things like that things that are little nuggets that that game developers pull on as story uh moves along or as
1:15:17
games release that maybe sometimes that payoff is not for a couple years maybe the payoff is it happened in game one
1:15:24
and didn't get a payoff until game three or four um same thing with TV shows or
1:15:29
comics or things like that so we haven't quite paired it down to exactly which ones we're going to cover besides the Cyberpunk one uh but we are going to be
1:15:36
going into that uh so I do want to thank you uh because Blizzard is made possible due to your generous contributions at
1:15:43
patreon.com/bizzardwatch your continued support means this podcast site and community is able to thrive and grow
1:15:49
blizzard watch supporters enjoy exclusive benefits like early access to the podcast better chance of having your question answered on our podcast or the
1:15:54
queue and an adree site experience uh so thank you very much uh but I hate to say
1:15:59
it tumors we got a delta but we'll catch you next time

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